South Kirkby firm’s freak blaze mystery

Nikki Mitchell

An investigation has been launched into the cause of a freak fire at a firm in South Kirkby.

It took five fire crews more than six hours to tackle the blaze at food co-products purchasing company, Soltens Coproducts, on Langthwaite Industrial Estate, on Tuesday.

The fire broke out at around 2am and damaged around 60 per cent of the building.

Steve Goddard, station manager at South Elmsall Fire Station, said: “It seems as though a massive pile of waste to be used as animal feed overheated in the middle and set alight.

“It is a rare fire and investigations are ongoing to find out what the cause was.

“Thankfully we were able attend the fire early and stopped it spreading to the whole of the building. However, there has some damage to the roof.”

Jonathan Job, procurement manager at Soltens UK, said: “The fire at our premises in South Kirby during the early hours of the Tuesday morning has resulted in some superficial damage to part of our building used to store potato crisps destined for the animal feed industry.

“Although the precise cause of the fire is not yet known, we are assured by the fire service that there are no suspicious circumstances and the damage has been restricted to a relatively small area.”

Fire crews from South Elmsall, Hemsworth, Pontefract, Featherstone and Adwick attended the blaze and diggers were used on Tuesday to clear away the debris.

Mr Job added: “Thankfully, as the fire took place at night no-one was on site and as a result there have been no casualties.”